At book club the other night, my friend Lisa brought a beautiful bowl of watermelon tomato salad, arranged right in the stripey green watermelon. It had tomatoes in it.
Which sounds weird.
But it was so delicious, a ping pong match between two of my favorite summer flavors: sweet watermelon and tangy tomatoes, with some herbs to give it further bite. I had two helpings and asked her for the recipe.
Lisa’s salad came from a Mark Bittman creation, and anything I’ve tried by this big-name chef and local/good food advocate has been great. This was no exception.
So I recreated the salad last week for lunches to bring to work. In the office kitchen, the folks around questioned me: that looks good! It’s enough of an introduction for me to wax on about any dish, so I explained: it has watermelon and tomatoes, and it calls for gorgonzola but I used feta, because that’s what I had around. It calls for cilantro but I used basil, because it’s what I had around. It calls for sherry vinegar, but I only had balsamic.
In the end, I guess this is my own salad, but many thanks to Bittman and to Lisa for launch. These amounts are approximate, and make about two servings.
Watermelon salad
1 ½ cups watermelon, cut with a melon baller
1 cup cherry tomatoes – I used the multi-colored ones from the Takoma Park Farmers’ Market
½ cup feta, crumbled
4 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
Olive oil to taste
Balsamic vinegar to taste
Mix together, keep refrigerated. Yum!
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